Panhandle towns make overtures to troubled El Paso dairies

EL PASO {AP} Panhandle towns are wooing El Paso dairy farmers who face the destruction of their herds because of chronic outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis.

Pampa, Hereford, Littlefield and another dozen or so Panhandle towns have lined up with offers of cash and grants to help the displaced dairy farmers find land.

"There are so many possibilities out there it is just mind-boggling," Chris Lane, whose family started Lane's Dairy Inc. in El Paso in 1930, told the Texas Journal of The Wall Street Journal.

Since 1985, El Paso County herds have been stricken with bovine tuberculosis. Officials say cows have been quarantined until herds are declared clean, only to become re-infected.

Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposes to destroy the county's 20,000-cow dairy herd. Under the department's plan, about a dozen dairy farmers would be paid as much as $40 million collectively to cover their losses.

The farmers, who generally support the plan, hope to use the money to start over somewhere else.

West Texas towns see the dairy farms as cash cows: A 2,000-head dairy farm usually includes a $2.5 million capital investment and about 25 jobs. Nearby grain farmers could also gain a customer who is less vulnerable to drought.

Dairy farms have become a centerpiece of economic-development plans in the Panhandle and South Plains. High Ground of Texas, which covers 54 North Texas counties, estimates that 11 farms have moved into the region over the past five years from California, New Mexico, New York and other parts of Texas.

"I'd love to get a subsidiary of Dell Computer and get 300 families up here, but that's tough," says Don Cumpton, executive director of Hereford Economic Development Corp. "It's a little easier to attract agriculture because the infrastructure is already in place."

Littlefield, about 40 miles northwest of Lubbock, has been

BYLINE1:"We're used to that sort of thing. We understand the smells that come from cattle."

Susan TripplehornExecutive directorPampa Economic Development Corp.

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among the most aggressive suitors, with three new dairies and three more awaiting permits. It has given farmers grants of up to $150,000 to cover land costs, with the city keeping a lien on the property until the business has been running three years.

Pampa, Hereford and other cities offer cash incentives of more than $10,000 for each job

The dairy operations are not welcomed in other areas. They produce huge amounts of waste that can create environmental problems. Erath County, 60 miles southwest of Fort Worth, produces almost one-fourth of the milk in Texas, but the concentration of farms has been blamed for water-quality problems downstream in Waco, plus airborne diseases and odors.

State officials and dairy farmers are close to a deal to require farmers to haul half the manure out of the Brazos River watershed.

Panhandle officials say their residents aren't bothered by the smell of dairy farms.

"We're used to that sort of thing," said Susan Tripplehorn, executive director of Pampa Economic Development Corp. "We understand the smells that come from cattle."